A young Iraqi woman who chronicled the daily struggles of life in Baghdad is fleeing with her family.

The blogger, who posted anonymously as Riverbend, tacked the announcement to the end of a post about the Adhamiya wall, starting off politely: “On a personal note….”

The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I’ve had since the age of four? Is there room for E.’s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

[...]

The weapons never existed. It’s like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn’t commit - having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition, almost. Then, after two years of grieving for the lost people, and mourning the lost sovereignty, we’re told we were innocent of harboring those weapons. We were never a threat to America….

In her last post, she was totally certain that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was better:

I remember Baghdad before the war - one could live anywhere. We didn’t know what our neighbors were - we didn’t care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it - depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.

I guess we should soon expect Michelle Malkin to pop up with a "Boo-freaking-hoo. Well I get called bad names and get nasty emails all of time, but does anyone care? Noooooo! No. They. Don't!"

Or maybe James Lileks will jump in. "Hey, Salam Riverbend? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him. And what about me? I gotta start covering the farging St Paul Planning Commision for G-d's sake!Jesus. Where's my Pepto?"